Mechanus

Outer Plane
Layers:	Mechanus
Primary Faction:	Fraternity of Order
Sect:	Mathematicians

As predictable as the drip of a water clock and as subtle as a fleeting breeze, Mechanus is a place of law and logic, of cold passions and premeditated plans. Though it's true that the Clockwork Universe is logical and ordered, it's just as true that the order of certain people and places on the plane remains dark to any berk who's not a native. Some things are just too complex for a mortal to understand.

Still, that doesn't keep some sods from trying. Xaositects, Guvners, and the powers and proxies from every point in the planes come here to study the gears that compose the plane and figure out what they're for. Some lawful types say that understanding the gears yields an understanding of the multiverse, while the chaotics generally seek ways to disrupt the cogs and bring disorder and anarchy to the supreme plane of law.

There's several ways into Mechanus, but the best known's through the gate-town of Automata. To get in during the day, a body's got to get through the clerks and tabulators and accountants. There's forms to fill out, high-ups to petition, and guards to pass (with authorization only!) just to reach the gate. Then there's the interminable wait while the gate's gears turn ever so slowly, mirroring the location where the gate'll appear on the plane. That's part of the reason a body has to go through the tabulators: to make sure the cutter winds up exactly where she wants to be (or where the bureaucracy decides she'd best be put). The guards are there to make sure a body goes through at the right time.

Of course, there's other ways into Mechanus, as many as there are gates and portals into other planes. After all, an infinite plane's a big place, and it'd be a folly to assume there's only one way to get into it. The gate from Automata extends to many places on Mechanus, but not, by any means, most of them. There's secret points of access to counterbalance the known ways, and all of them fit into a neat little pattern.

Mechanus is, as the name suggests, a huge collection of paraphernalia, a plane of gears, cogs, and pulleys linked together inextricably. There's only the gears, turning and clicking eternally around each other, stretching off into the inky blackness for as far as the eye can see - and much, much farther, too.

Some'd say that these gears are just for show, that nothing truly lawful could ever change. Well, these berks've got to understand that law don't meant static - it means order and orderly movement. The change that happens here is planned and governed by some logic, even if none of those sods outside can understand it.

It's said that there's spirits of the gears who watch over them and make sure everything turns properly. Most people haven't seen these spirits, but they're there, and they serve under modrons. Like dryads and trees, the gear spirits protect their gears from the depredations of fools and the constant erosion of entropy. Though they ain't the gear scrubbers the modrons are, gear spirits play an important part in maintaining the plane. Likewise, there's the moignos - strange little two-dimensional creatures running about the plane. Adventurers are likely to see them, but unless they offer up a mathematical conundrum, it's unlikely the moignos'll take any notice.

Now, a body'd think that a place full of machinery beyond mortal ken would be no place for berks to set up residence. With all the turning gears and inexplicable machinery, it just wouldn't be safe. Besides, how's a body to breather air that wouldn't need to exist? No, they reason, Mechanus just isn't a livable place.

That just ain't true. There's air that anyone can breathe (but don't ask how; even water-breathing creatures can survive in the air of Mechanus). There's life on the great cogs - life, powers, and beings the likes of can't be imagined by clueless addle-coves. Mechanus's full of life, and just about all of it's devoted to furthering the cause of law and order.

The gears allow habitation on both sides. All a body has to do is walk to the edge of one cog and step over the side, and she'll reorient herself to the gravity of the gear on the other side. It's as simple as that. Gravity is basically oriented to the plane of the gear. It changes from gear to gear, since some are "vertical," at least in relation to the others. Still, no one's ever fallen off one gear and onto another. The trip has to be made by flying or walking.